Groups and Topological Dynamics Volodymyr Nekrashevych
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Groups and topological dynamics Volodymyr Nekrashevych E-mail address: [email protected] 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary ... ; Secondary ... Key words and phrases. .... The author ... Abstract. ... Contents Chapter 1. Dynamical systems 1 x1.1. Introduction by examples 1 x1.2. Subshifts 21 x1.3. Minimal Cantor systems 36 x1.4. Hyperbolic dynamics 74 x1.5. Holomorphic dynamics 103 Exercises 111 Chapter 2. Group actions 117 x2.1. Structure of orbits 117 x2.2. Localizable actions and Rubin's theorem 136 x2.3. Automata 149 x2.4. Groups acting on rooted trees 163 Exercises 193 Chapter 3. Groupoids 201 x3.1. Basic definitions 201 x3.2. Actions and correspondences 214 x3.3. Fundamental groups 233 x3.4. Orbispaces and complexes of groups 238 x3.5. Compactly generated groupoids 243 x3.6. Hyperbolic groupoids 252 Exercises 252 iii iv Contents Chapter 4. Iterated monodromy groups 255 x4.1. Iterated monodromy groups of self-coverings 255 x4.2. Self-similar groups 265 x4.3. General case 274 x4.4. Expanding maps and contracting groups 291 x4.5. Thurston maps and related structures 311 x4.6. Iterations of polynomials 333 x4.7. Functoriality 334 Exercises 340 Chapter 5. Groups from groupoids 345 x5.1. Full groups 345 x5.2. AF groupoids 364 x5.3. Homology of totally disconnected ´etalegroupoids 371 x5.4. Almost finite groupoids 378 x5.5. Bounded type 380 x5.6. Torsion groups 395 x5.7. Fragmentations of dihedral groups 401 x5.8. Purely infinite groupoids 423 Exercises 424 Chapter 6. Growth and amenability 427 x6.1. Growth of groups 427 x6.2. Groups of intermediate growth 427 x6.3. Inverted orbits and growth of wreath products 431 x6.4. Growth of fragmentations of D8 439 x6.5. Non-uniform exponential growth 447 x6.6. Amenability 448 Exercises 454 Bibliography 457 Chapter 1 Dynamical systems A topological dynamical system H y X is an action of a semigroup H on a topolgical space X by continuous transformations. Classically, X is the phase space, the semigroup H represents time, and the action describes time evolution of the system. Accordingly, the acting semigroup is typically a subsemigroup of the additive group of real numbers (e.g., the semigroup of non-negative reals, the group of integers, or the semigroup of natural numbers). The subsequent chapters of the book will mostely deal with more \ex- otic" groups. But even in such cases, the groups often will be associated in a natural way to classical dynamical systems. The first section of this chapter is a short overview of well known examples of dynamical systems. It introduces concepts that will be developed and generalized in the later parts of the book. The subsequent sections deal with more specialized top- ics in dynamical systems: subshifts, minimal homeomorphisms of Cantor sets, basic notions of hyperbolic dynamics, symbolic encoding of dynamical systems, and basic facts of holomorphic dynamics. 1.1. Introduction by examples 1.1.1. Irrational rotation. Consider the circle R{Z of real numbers mod- ulo 1. It can be naturally identified with the complex unit circle T C by the map x ÞÑ e2πix. The circle R{Z is a group with respect to the addition. The above identification of R{Z with the unit circle is an isomorphism of the additive group R{Z with the multiplicative group T . 1 2 1. Dynamical systems Suppose that θ P R{Z is irrational. Consider the corresponding rotation Rθ : x ÞÑ x θ: It is a homeomorphism of the circle, hence it generates an action of the infinite cyclic group Z by homeomorphisms. It is given by pn; xq ÞÑ nθ x for n P Z and x P R{Z. The central topic of topological dynamics is the study of topological properties of the orbits of a dynamical system H y X , i.e., the sets of the form Hx thx : h P Hu for x P X . For example, we may be interested in the cases when Hx is finite (or compact for a topological semigroup H), or in properties of the closure of Hx, etc.. If G is a group acting on a space X by homeomorphisms, then it naturally defines the orbit equivalence relation on X . It is given by x y ðñ Dg P G : gpxq y: The orbits of the action are the equivalence classes of this relation. It is natural to consider then the set GzX (or X {G for right actions) of orbits of the action. We introduce on it the smallest (coarsest) topology (i.e., topology with smallest set of open sets) for which the natural map X ÝÑ GzX is continuous. In other words, a subset A GzX is open if and only if its full preimage in X is open. The space GzX is frequently non-Hausdorff. For example, the following classical theorem of Kronecker [Kro84] implies that in the case of the ir- rational rotation Rθ the space of orbits of the action of Z on the circle has trivial topology (i.e., the only open sets are the empty set and the whole space). Theorem 1.1.1. Every orbit tx nθ : n P Zu is dense in R{Z. Proof. Denote, for a real number x, by fracpxq the fractional part of x, i.e., the unique number from the interval r0; 1q such that a ¡ fracpaq P Z. It is enough to prove that the orbit of 0 is dense in R{Z, since the orbit of an arbitrary point α P R{Z is obtained from the orbit of 0 by the rotation Rα. Consider an arbitrary positive integer N, and the arcs r0; 1{Nq, r1{N; 2{Nq, ... rpN ¡ 1q{N; 1q of the circle R{Z. Since the orbit tfracpnθq : n P Zu is infinite, there exist integers n1 n2 such that fracpn1θq and fracpn2θq be- long to the same arc. Then fracp|pn1 ¡ n2qθ|q 1{N. This proves that for every ¡ 0 there exists n P Z such that fracpnθq . Then the difference between consecutive entries of the sequence 0; fracpnθq; fracp2nθq;::: is less than , hence for every α P R{Z there exists k such that fracp|α¡knθ|q . Consequently, the orbit of 0 is dense in R{Z. 1.1. Introduction by examples 3 Definition 1.1.2. An action H y X is minimal if every H-orbit Hx is dense in X . It is easy to see that a group action G y X is minimal if and only if the space GzX is antidiscrete. Minimality is one of possible notions of irreducibility of topological dy- namical systems, as the following lemma shows. (It also explains the origin of the term \minimal", which referred to minimal invariant closed subsets.) Lemma 1.1.3. A system H y X is minimal if and the only closed subsets Y X such that hpYq Y for every h P H are X and the empty set. Proof. If H y X is not minimal, then there exists x P X such that the orbit Hx is not dense. Then its closure Y Hx satisfies hpYq Y for all h P H, and is not equal neither to X nor to H. In the other direction, if Y is H-invariant and closed, then for every x P Y the closure of the orbit Hx is contained in Y. So, if Y is non-emtpy and different from X , then no H orbit of a point of Y is dense in X . The circle is the quotient of R by the natural action of Z, and the rotation Rθ is lifted to the action on R of the transformation x ÞÑ x θ. The orbits of the irrational rotation are therefore equal to the images under the natural 2 quotient map R ÝÑ R{Z of the orbits of the action Z y R generated by the transformations x ÞÑ x 1 and x ÞÑ x θ. 2 2 Consider the natural action Z y R generated by the transformations a : px; yq ÞÑ px 1; yq; b : px; yq ÞÑ px; y 1q; 2 and consider the projection P : R ÝÑ R given by P px; yq x θy. We have P pap~vqq P p~vq 1 and P pbp~vqq P p~vq θ. In other words, the map 2 2 2 P projects the natural action Z y R to the action Z y R generated by x ÞÑ x 1 and x ÞÑ x θ. Denote by Q the composition of P with the natural quotient R ÝÑ R{Z. The orbits of the rotation Rθ ü R{Z are the Q-images of the sets of the form 2 2 Z v R . The segment r0; 1q R is a natural fundamental domain of the 2 quotient map R ÝÑ R{Z, and we can consider the part of Z v projected by P to r0; 1q. Every point of the Rθ-orbit of α P R{Z is represented then ¡1 2 ¡1 by exactly one point of the set P pr0; 1qq X pZ vq for v P Q pαq. See Figure 1.1, where an orbit of a point under a rotation is represented 2 2 in this way. The grid is the set Z v for some v P R . The transformation P is the projection onto the horizontal coordinate axis along lines parallel to the slanted lines shown on the picture. The strip between the slanted lines is the set P ¡1pr0; 1qq. The points of the grid inside the strip represent the points of the orbit of the rotation.